Note 44 — THE DUNKER LOVE-FEAST.
Reading edition
A friend tells me that he once heard a discourse from a celebrated Dunker preacher, named Sarah Reiter. She was allowed to preach, it seems, by a liberal construction of Paul’s celebrated edict, because she was unmarried. Even when afterward married, by a more liberal construction still, the liberty to preach was not forbidden her. Possibly it was assumed that her husband at home was not able to answer all her questions upon spiritual matters. She removed to Ohio.
In the Encyclopædia Americana the following are given as propositions of some of the former Anabaptists: “Impiety prevails everywhere. It is therefore necessary that a new family of holy persons should be founded, enjoying without distinction of sex the gift of prophecy, and skill to interpret divine revelations. Hence they need no learning, for the internal word is more than the outward expression.”
At this time, however, while our German Baptists still believe in an unpaid, untaught ministry, none of them, I think, hold to the doctrine that the gift of prophecy or preaching is without distinction of sex. In this respect, George Fox seems to have agreed with the early Anabaptists just mentioned.